Frequently Asked Questions

Philosophy of Funding

• What kinds of activity do you support?

We support the global human rights movement. Our programmes are described on this website. See also the pages on our current grantees.

• What is your philosophy of funding?

Our guiding principles are:

We recognise the essential role of core funding. Many human rights organisations have relatively easy access to earmarked project money, but find it difficult to find the funds for running costs. We believe that unrestricted funding encourages innovation and imagination.

We look for good and effective leadership.

We are flexible and responsive to needs and opportunities.

We value clarity and brevity in applications and reports. We take a critical view of the quality of proposals. We have a bias against rhetorical or overly political language, acronyms, repetitions, and a lack of clarity.

We establish long-term relationships with grantees.

• Does an organisation have to be a registered charity in order to be funded by the Trust?

No. However, as a registered charity itself the Trust can only support activities that can be properly considered to be charitable according to the law of England and Wales (Charities Act 2006). For more information please consult the Charity Commission’s website http://www.charitycommission.gov.uk/Library/guidance/publicbenefittext.pdf

• Do you give grants to individuals?

Normally not.

• Does the Trust fund religious or faith-based organisations?

Normally not, unless the work is of an exceptional standard and not carried out by any secular group.

Types of funding

• Does the Trust offer multi-year grants?

Organisations which have not previously received funding from the Trust are considered only for one-year grants. After that the Trust generally offers three-year grants.

• What is the Trust's philosophy on working with organisations that are in a start-up phase?

The Trust welcomes new initiatives.

• Do you give emergency grants?

We are not set up to provide emergency grants, but under exceptional circumstances the Trust can provide informal funding via existing or previous grantees as a response to a sudden human rights crisis or in order to protect human rights defenders. Please contact your programme officer.

• Do you have a scholarship fund?

No, but some of our grants do support scholarship schemes.

• Does the Trust have geographical grant-making restrictions?

No

• Does the Trust accept requests for donations in kind?

No

• Do you fund building projects?

We don't normally consider proposals for building projects.

• Will the Trust consider loans?

No

Application process

• What is the process for applying for a grant?

The Trust does not accept unsolicited applications for funding. From time to time, we may post requests for proposals on the application process page of this website.

• Can we meet with someone to discuss a possible proposal?

Programme staff will generally arrange to meet organisations invited to apply, in order to discuss their proposals in more detail.

In addition, our programme officers are available to grantees for advice and contacts in the field.

If you have not been invited to apply, but wish to let the Trust know about your work, you can send an email describing your organisation to research@srtrust.org. Programme staff review the emails regularly, but are unlikely to be able to meet with you in person.

• When are applicants notified of decisions?

The Trust considers applications in each of its sub-programmes once each year. The deadline for applications is normally three months before the meeting. Applicants are notified of the trustees' decision in the week following the meeting.

• What is an appropriate request amount? Is there a maximum grant size?

There is no minimum or maximum amount. It would be unusual for the Trust to support more than 25% of the costs of an organisation or a project.

• My organisation sent in an unsolicited letter of enquiry prior to the end of October 2010. Will this be considered?

All enquiries received before the end of October 2010 will receive a response. Enquiries received after this date cannot be considered.

Decision making

• How does the Trust decide what to fund?

Our remit is to support the human rights movement, within our current sub-programmes. Programme staff and trustees decide together which organisations should be invited to apply. Programme staff then carry out a process of assessment and write a detailed recommendation to trustees. Each sub-programme is considered annually, at one of three separate meetings. Trustees make the final decision on grants.

• We submitted a grant enquiry form prior to the end of October 2010 which was turned down. Can you tell me why?

The most likely reason for rejection is that the relevant sub-programme is full. A rejection does not, therefore, reflect negatively on your organisation. We have limited resources and enter into long-term relationships with our partners. There is, therefore, a natural limit on how many new organisations we can take on.